The present invention provides techniques for inline searching in an instant messaging environment, and more particularly, to techniques for performing a web search inline in an instant messaging environment and displaying search results inline in the instant messaging environment.
The Internet offers various ways for users to communicate with other users. For example, instant messaging (IM) provides communication between Internet users within a closed community. Only registered users can send or receive messages via an instant messaging service. Users are required to sign in to the same system (or possibly the same server) with a pre-selected user name and password before sending instant messages.
Often IM users have a desire to search the Internet to access information. For example, an IM user may want to search the Internet to locate information about a topic that is related to an active IM conversation. Current IM applications do not allow a user to link directly to the World Wide Web to perform searches, nor do they allow the user to easily share the search result.
An IM user must manually open a separate web browser window to link to the web site of an Internet search engine. After typing in search criteria into the Internet search web site, an IM user manually flips through the search results to identify relevant web sites and then links to those web sites. To share the search result, the user must copy and paste the URL for the web site into an IM conversation and send the URL.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide techniques for performing web searches in an instant messaging environment.